The US has got “highly fair” information from its intelligence service that russia will try to annex Donetsk and Luhansk regions “somewhere in mid-May”. Moscow has a similar plan regarding Kherson.
Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said that, reports CNN.
“The reports show that russia is planning referenda about annex for the middle of May. And the similar plan Moscow is considering for Kherson,” he said at the briefing at the State Department.
Carpenter added that as it is reported russia kidnaps the local officials from the towns that it has occupied in the east and in the south of Ukraine to replace them with “groups, sympathetic to Moscow”. Moreover, “the school principles, journalists, local activists, and municipal officials” disappear.
“Just recently we’ve got the information that russian troops locked access to the Internet and some mobile operators in these regions for blocking the stream of true-to-life information,”- said Carpenter, adding that in these cities and towns russia may try to have sham referenda for making its activities look legitimate.
Earlier, in the absence, the Security Service of Ukraine served with charges so-called head of Kherson City Administration who was “appointed” by occupiers.